Lisel Mueller

For A Thirteenth Birthday Poem by Lisel Mueller

You have read War and Peace.Now here is Sister Carrie,not up to Tolstoy; stillit will second the real world:predictable planes and levels,pavement that holds you,stairs that lift you,ice that trips you,nights that begin after sunset,four lunar phases,a finite house.

I give you Dreiseralthough (or because)I am no longer sure.Lately I have been walking into glass doors.Through the car windows, curbs disappear.On the highway, wrong turnoffs become irresistible,someone else is controlling the wheel.Sleepless nights pile up like a police record;all my friends are getting divorced.Language, my old comrade, deserts me;words are misused or forgotten,consonants fight each otherbetween my upper and lower teeth.I write "fiend" for "friend"and "word" for "world",remember comes out with an "m" missing.

I used to be able to find my way in the dark,sure of the furniture,but the town I lived in for yearshas pulled up its streets in my absence,disguised its buildings behind my back.My neighbor at dinner glancesat his cuffs, his palms;he has memorized certain phrases,but does not speak my language.Suddenly I am aware no one at the table does.

And so I give you Dreiser,his measure of certainty:a table that's oak all the way through,real and fragrant flowers,skirts from sheep and silkworms,no unknown fibers;a language as plain as money,a workable means of exchange;a world whose very meanness is solid,mud into mortar, and you are sureof what will injure you.

I give you names like nails,walls that withstand your pounding,doors that are hard to open,but once they are open, admit you into rooms that breathe pure sun.I give you trees that lose their leaves,as you knew they would,and then come green again.I give you fruit preceded by flowers,Venus supreme in the sky,the miracle of alwayslanding on your feet,even though the earthrotates on its axis.